


i hold a banner for you (but it's upside down)

by andawaywego



Series: Faberry Week [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Experimentation, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Faberry Week, Mentions of Quinntana, Smut, mentions of Finchel, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 20:41:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4152204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andawaywego/pseuds/andawaywego
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"'I guess, I thought, you know…' Rachel clears her throat. 'It’s college and that stuff—experimenting, I guess—happens. I guess I just thought, if you were curious, you might have come to me.'" Faberry. Post-Season Six.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i hold a banner for you (but it's upside down)

**Author's Note:**

> another late one.
> 
> this is for day two--experimentation.
> 
> also takes place after season 6 but before the five years later thing-y.
> 
> read on.

...

_i hold a banner for you_

_(but it's upside down)_

_.._

 

On her first night back in New York, Rachel and Quinn end up discussing sex.

It’s after Kurt and Blaine’s more-than-a-little depressing, _Welcome Back, Rachel!,_ party has wound down and everyone—meaning Mercedes, Santana, and Brittany—have gone home to bed.

But Quinn is still there.

Blaine and Kurt had insisted she stay the night, rather than traveling the two hours back to her “empty” and “lonely” New Haven apartment.

Rachel had called her when she’d been packing the things up in her hotel room a few days ago, telling Quinn that she missed her—she was sorry for letting them go so long without speaking and would she like to meet for coffee sometime soon?

Quinn was simultaneously unsurprised and disappointed that she immediately jumped on the offer without really considering the ramifications.

She winces now, sitting on the couch beside Rachel, remembering how eager her, “Yeah, definitely,” had sounded.

So, of course, she’d shown up when Kurt invited her over for dinner and copious amounts of alcohol, offering up his and Blaine’s couch for a bed in return for helping get some of Rachel’s belongings into the spare bedroom.

And, sure, the train ride was long and Quinn’s back was now aching—that quiet, dense ache that often inhabits her muscles when she stands or sits too long or strains herself.

But Rachel had said, “Quinn!” when she’d seen her and hugged her with her arms around her neck and it was more than worth it.

They’d spent the night speaking quietly to one another, catching up, explaining distances or gaps in communication. Apologizing.

It wasn’t as heavy as it should have been, though, because Rachel kept laughing and Quinn kept making jokes to make her laugh and Quinn had thought that, after everything with Rachel’s Broadway debut and then the television show, she might never have the chance to reconcile this relationship.

She’s just glad she was wrong.

Rachel had said, “I really missed you, Quinn,” and Quinn hadn’t wasted any time returning the sentiment—though hers was laced with some deeper feeling that she hoped Rachel wasn’t able to pick up on.

It was all completely normal conversation, but Rachel is on her fourth beer of the evening and Kurt and Blaine disappeared into their bedroom some time ago, and now that they’re alone, Rachel must be feeling frisky.

She takes a long pull from her beer—Quinn hadn’t even known Rachel _liked_ beer—and sighs, leaning back against the couch cushions.

“I haven’t had sex in so long.”

Quinn stiffens in her seat beside the other woman.

 _That’s_ certainly a change of pace, considering they’d just been talking about going to the Central Park Zoo together.

Quinn’s not sure what the appropriate response to that is—isn’t sure there _is_ one, actually.

But something—the stirring in her stomach, that nauseating back and forth as her brain repeats the words—makes her frown, and ask, “That…Wow, um…Okay. Who…?”

Rachel looks at her. “Um, Finn.”

The name lingers.

Quinn quirks an eyebrow.

So it has been long time, then.

“When—?”

“Mr. Schuster’s almost wedding.”

A really long time.

“That, um…there’s nothing wrong with that, you know. Abstinence.”

Rachel glances at her, looking amused. “I knew you wouldn’t judge, Miss Celibacy.”

This offends Quinn a tad and she sits up straighter. “Hey! You don’t know,” she counters. “Maybe I’ve become more…cavalier in my sexual encounters since the last time we had a heart-to-heart.”

She hasn’t. At all.

In her life, she’s only sex with two people, both of which had been drunken mistakes.

She hasn’t exactly been eager to jump the gun after the way losing her virginity had gone.

But beyond even that valid excuse, there’s something else.

Something—some _one_ —with brown hair and eyes that’s grinning at her, biting her lip, and saying, “Sure. So, I assume that you and Biff…you know.”

Quinn frowns. “Rachel, if you’re gonna try to talk about it or, hey, even _do_ it, you might want to be able to say the words.”

“I said them earlier. It’s just tacking them onto a question I’m asking you _,_ of all people, that’s difficult.”

Quinn wants to ask why, but this conversation is already heading towards a place that she doesn’t necessarily want to go.

Still, she answers, “No, we didn’t.”

“Then why cover your tattoo if there wasn’t risk of him seeing it?” Rachel asks, looking curious.

Quinn frowns at her. “How did you know about that?”

Rachel shrugs, taking another sip from her beer. “Santana told me.”

“Of course she did.” A pause. “We, we did…other stuff…Just not…that.”

“A valid answer.”

There’s a pause, a dip in the sofa. Rachel moving closer.

“What about you and that…what was it, your sociology professor or something?”

Quinn is going to kill Santana.

“ _Psych_ ology,” she corrects. “And, no. Nothing there, either.”

Rachel nods. “Wow, okay. So, when was the last—“

“Mr. Schuster’s almost wedding.”

Rachel looks at Quinn, her lips tilted up a little. “Something else we have in common, then.”

“This is weird,” Quinn breathes out without meaning to.

“What?” Rachel asks, and Quinn isn’t sure if she’s asking because she didn’t hear her or because she wants her to repeat herself.

Quinn shakes her head. “Nothing.”

Rachel sets her empty beer down on the coffee table and props her feet up next to it. “So, Santana was your last then?”

Quinn’s left ear, the one she has her bangs tucked behind is bright red.

She sputters for a moment before grumbling something along the lines of, “I’m going to kill her. In her sleep. Tonight.”

She makes as if to stand and leave, trek across New York in the middle of the night with the sole intent of murdering one of her best friends, but Rachel laughs and stills her with a hand to the arm.

“I was just curious. We can talk about something else, if you want.” Rachel pauses, scrunching up her face like she’s trying to think up a good topic. “Do you think fish get tired of how much schooling they have to go through?”

Quinn laughs, even though she’s still mortified, and has to fight the urge to reach out, kiss the side of Rachel’s head or worse.

“You’re drunk,” she says, but Rachel shakes her head.

“I think I would know if I was drunk,” she returns. “Besides, it’s not like I drank my body weight or anything even close. I just feel…float-y.”

“Float-y, huh?

“Float-y.”

“Okay. Maybe lay low for a while, though. Give it some time to settle.”

Rachel nods before leaning her head, gently, against Quinn’s shoulder.

Quinn sucks in a breath through her nose and tries not to move, jostle Rachel so much that she pulls away.

“I cried, you know,” Rachel says quietly.

Quinn frowns. “What?”

“When Santana told me that you and her had…I cried.”

There’s a knot in Quinn’s stomach, her throat—a lump made of tangled questions she wants to ask.

“Why?” she ends up saying, sounding choked, breathless, dying.

Rachel shrugs, making her head jerk a little on Quinn’s shoulder. “I don’t know.”

Quinn watches the other woman play with the hem of her t-shirt, pressing her thumb against it and sliding it back and forth.

“I guess, I thought, you know…” Rachel clears her throat. “It’s college and that stuff— _experimenting,_ I guess—happens. I guess I just thought, if you were curious, you might have come to me.”

Quinn has the sudden urge to pull away from Rachel and leave. Forget everything that’s being said.

Because Rachel probably doesn’t mean it the way she’s wording it.

She has a habit of doing that.

“F-For…For what?” Quinn asks.

Rachel shrugs again. “She told me, you know.”

“Yeah, you’ve made that very clear.”

Maybe Rachel is more drunk than she’s letting on.

“Not about that,” Rachel says. “She told me…when you…She told me that you said the wrong name.”

Okay, Quinn thinks.

That’s it.

She’s leaving.

She starts to pull away, get out of this room and go back to New Haven and Yale and forget that this—that Rachel and everything here tonight, the last seven years—even happened.

She wishes it were possible to melt, sink between the floorboards and just stay there.

Especially because Rachel has pulled her head back up and is looking at Quinn again, trying to make eye contact that Quinn can’t bring herself to maintain.

“I figured it was just Santana being Santana, you know. Teasing me or something. Or you, I guess. But…Did you really….Did you really call her, ‘Rachel’?”

Quinn gulps.

She’s not nearly drunk enough for this.

Trying to rectify this, she gets to her feet without a word and makes her way over tothe kitchen, rifling through a few of the cabinets until she finds a bottle of Jameson.

Opening it up, she takes a large drink, grimacing as it slides down her throat.

There are footsteps behind her and then there Rachel is, in the doorway, arms across her stomach like she’s nervous, afraid of showing Quinn too much of her in case of getting hurt.

She looks a little unsteady on her feet and Quinn wants to make a joke about her being _such_ a lightweight, but ends up just taking another drink.

“You did, didn’t you?”

Quinn can’t look at her, but she forces herself to nod.

Rachel takes a shaky breath. “Did you…Did you imagine it was me? Doing those things to you?”

It’s ridiculous that after years of not-so-subtle hints and Quinn basically being terrible at hiding her feelings, this is how she found out.

Quinn isn’t sure what to say and she can’t tell if this is leading somewhere dangerous or if Rachel’s just curious.

Rachel is stepping closer, trailing her hand down the counter until she comes to a stop just within touching distance of Quinn, who’s pupils are blown in the darkness of the kitchen.

“Is that why you called her my name when you came? Because you knew, deep down, that you would have rather gone back to that hotel room with me instead of her?”

Quinn can’t believe this is happening.

She has to resist the urge to pinch herself.

Sober Rachel would never be so bold, so presumptuous.

She _must_ have had more to drink than she’s letting on.

“You did, didn’t you, Quinn? You wanted it to be me.”

Quinn groans a little bit, under her breath, because Rachel’s voice is low and deeper than she’s has ever heard it.

“I wanted it to be me, too.”

This is wrong, Quinn thinks.

This isn’t how she wants it to happen.

Because things are still messy and torn-up. They’ve barely just become kind-of friends again and Quinn isn’t even really sure how real any of their so-called “friendship” has been in the past because she was always so in love with Rachel and Rachel was always so oblivious to it.

Except apparently she isn’t oblivious to it anymore.

Even if she’s possibly—probably—drunk.

And, fuck, Quinn can’t even process what Rachel’s just said because her fingertips, her stomach, her face—they’re all on fire.

She should probably argue, fight this, but she can’t.

Rachel is in her space, breath hitting Quinn’s face and then she’s kissing Quinn before Quinn can even protest.

Rachel is kissing her hard in the middle of the kitchen with the bottle of whiskey balanced in Quinn’s hands and her fingers threaded through blonde hair.

The right thing to do would be to push her away, tell her that they’ll discuss it in the morning and to just drop it for now.

But, God, Quinn has wanted this for so long.

She’s watched Rachel for years and wanted to press her into every available surface, shove her hand up her dress, down her pants—even when she’d worn pantsuits or Crocs to school.

So instead of pushing her away, Quinn sets the bottle on the counter and holds onto Rachel’s hips, pressing her tongue into Rachel’s mouth.

“Bedroom,” Rachel whispers, when they pull apart.

It’s like a dream sequence in an 80’s horror flick when Rachel drags her towards her bedroom—the hall stretching out like taffy, twisting like it’s caught in a carnival mirror.

With the door closed behind them, there’s no hesitation or second-guessing like Quinn had anticipated there being.

Instead, Rachel pushes her body into Quinn’s and resumes kissing her, bringing her hand down to the round of Quinn’s ass.

This is what stops Quinn short, makes her draw back and breathe heavily for a moment as she attempts to make sense of what’s happening.

“Rachel?” she whispers and Rachel’s eyes are wide and hazy. “What are we doing?”

Rachel bumps Quinn’s nose with her own, and it’s a dumb question—one Quinn knows the answer to.

But, “If you don’t…This isn’t just…For me, it’s so much more, okay?”

She whispers it fiercely and she’s almost afraid the sound of her thumping heart will wake Blaine and Kurt up.

“You…You might be able to, I don’t know…when this is done, but I can’t.”

She’s certain she’s making no sense.

But Rachel kisses her and, when she draws away, their lips stick together a little.

“It’s…not just…” She shakes her head, looking exasperated, but if the certainty flowering in Quinn’s stomach—where she’d felt sick just moments before—says anything, it certainly feels like a promise. “For me either.”

They’re on the bed then, Rachel straddling Quinn with knees on either side of her waist, arms around Quinn’s neck.

It’s like surrender, the way Quinn can feel the things they’re not saying, circling the room like a buzzing fly. It’s like standing on the edge of the woods at night with your back to the trees, trying to ignore the sound of breaking twigs just behind you, getting closer.

Rachel’s hand moves down to press between Quinn’s legs and Quinn squeezes her eyes shut, whispering, “ _Shit_.”

Quinn presses her forehead to Rachel’s collarbone and considers begging her to stop, but instead just says, “I’m gonna come if…if you don’t…”

Rachel seems to understand, because she pulls her hand away and kisses Quinn instead, moving her fingertips to Quinn’s jaw.

After a moment, her hands drift lower, to Quinn’s breast and there’s a gentle squeeze that makes Quinn jerk her hips up a little, makes her grip on Rachel’s waist tighten.

“Is this what you pictured?” Rachel asks, tugging off Quinn’s shirt before returning her hands to the blonde’s chest. “When you were with Santana? Did you imagine me touching you like this?”

Quinn’s being pressed into the mattress now, her head lolling back against Rachel’s pillows.

And then her bra is gone and Rachel’s mouth is _right there_ , hovering over her nipple with hot breath.

Quinn opens her eyes and looks at her, trying to find her voice enough to tell her to just _get on with it_.

“Answer me,” Rachel says, looking serious.

Her tongue darts out and she sucks Quinn’s nipple between her lips, tugging on it with her teeth a little.

Quinn’s eyes are shut again and she nods when she feels Rachel’s hand pressing between her legs again.

“Quinn,” Rachel whispers, moving up so that they’re face-to-face. “Is this what you wanted?”

She’s moved her hand away so that wonderful pressure is gone and Quinn groans, moving her hips back up for more contact.

But Rachel dodges her advances, so Quinn finally whimpers, “Rachel, yes…I…I wanted you… _want_ you. Please.”

And then Quinn’s pants are on the floor and Rachel’s hand is slipping underneath her underwear.

“Oh my God,” Quinn whispers, biting her lip at the sight of Rachel staring down at where her hand has disappear to, a look of fierce concentration on her face.

The tip of her forefinger hits Quinn’s clit and Quinn bucks her hips up.

Rachel slips her fingers down and then into Quinn without pretense, making Quinn hiss through her teeth.

She moves her fingers—her index and middle—in and out, speeding up and she finally looks up, locking eyes with Quinn just as her thumb returns to Quinn’s clit and that’s all it takes.

“Rachel, fuck…”

Rachel keeps her fingers moving until Quinn stills beneath her, chest rising and falling, and then she slips her fingers out, wipes them on the bedspread and kisses Quinn’s breathless mouth.

She shifts her knees, still placed on either side of Quinn’s hips, and Quinn looks up at her with slightly fearful eyes.

Rachel looks nervous now, too, as if her brazen attitude was fueled entirely by alcohol only.

“Was…Was I better than her?”

Quinn sits up immediately and shakes her head—in disbelief—reaching out to cup Rachel’s cheek in her hand.

“Rachel…you were so, so…So much better.” Rachel’s eyes are shimmering a little and Quinn presses a timid kiss to her lips. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted you to do that?”

Rachel smiles but, she looks like she’s not quite buying it, as if she believes Quinn would just lie to make her feel better.

“Seriously, Rachel,” Quinn says, hoping her voice sounds sincere. “It was…God, it was so bad when I was pregnant.”

Rachel lets out an uncertain laugh. “Really?”

Quinn nods. “I was so crazy hormonal all the time, Rachel. And around you it was so much worse.”

Her voice has that weight to it that it always does when she discusses things she’s not used to being honest about.

“I just wanted you to…I don’t know, shove me against my locker and take me right then and there, or the piano or something.”

She shakes her head.

She hadn’t planned on sharing this much, but it’s like being stripped bare—literally and figuratively. It’s how Rachel always makes her feel.

It’s possible she’s expecting some backlash for implying that she’s had feelings for Rachel all along, but Rachel must have known that already, before she kissed her.

It shouldn’t be brand-new information anymore.

Rachel kisses her, gently, and Quinn turns it into an excuse to touch her more, flip them around so that it’s Rachel’s turn to be pressed down into the mattress.

Quinn drifts her mouth away from Rachel’s lips and to her neck, her mouth hot against Rachel’s skin.

If she’d been told twenty-four hours ago—hell, _four_ hours ago—that this would be happening, she might have passed out.

But now she strips Rachel of her clothes, tossing them carelessly to the floor so that she can feel the weight of Rachel’s breasts in her hands.

She traces the other woman’s nipples with her mouth and Rachel lets out a breathy sigh, fingernails digging into Quinn’s shoulder blades.

“Oh, God, Quinn,” Rachel gasps, arching so that Quinn has to take more of her breast into her mouth.

Quinn moves to her other breast, but can only stay for a moment because Rachel tugs her up, kisses her.

“Please,” Rachel whimpers, panting against Quinn’s face. “Please, Quinn.”

Quinn wants to tease her—say, “Please _what?_ ” with a smirk—but Rachel is begging her and Quinn never thought she’d live to see the day.

So she reaches down, slips her hand down Rachel’s body and tugs off her panties, dropping them in the same vicinity of the rest of her discarded clothes.

She glances over to see where they landed, only to be met with the dark blackness of the world around them, and, when she looks back, Rachel has her own hand between her legs, touching herself.

Quinn watches with wide eyes for a moment, her ears filled with a the same buzz that’s drowning her head.

“ _Quinn_ ,” Rachel moans and Quinn blinks a few times before replacing Rachel’s hand with her own, circling her finger in the wetness around Rachel’s entrance.

Rachel shivers and moves her hips up a little, towards Quinn.

Quinn takes it as a sign and slides one finger into her slowly. And it’s so much like everything and nothing she imagined at once that she feels her chin quivering, eyes prickling with tears.

She moves her finger in and out and then adds another finger and her thumb on Rachel’s clit into the mix.

Rachel releases a quasi-piercing, “Fuck!”

She reaches down and touches Quinn’s hand, looking to where their skin is meeting like she needs to see it, feel it, so that she knows it’s really happening.

Quinn curls her fingers a little with each thrust, just to see the reaction she’ll get and Rachel says, “Quinn…don’t stop.”

She’d always sort of assumed Rachel was as loud in the bedroom as she was on stage and she smirks a little, looking slightly awed, as she realizes that she’s causing these sounds.

She moves her wrist faster, pushing her fingers in as deep as she can without straining herself or Rachel.

Rachel gasps from the feeling and her hips meeting Quinn halfway.

Quinn kisses her and Rachel moans against her lips saying, “Please, Quinn, God. Please, don’t stop.”

It’s only a few more seconds before Quinn can feel Rachel clenching around her fingers as she groans and she wilts against the sheets, eyes closed.

Quinn stays there, inside of her, just trying to memorize the feeling in case she doesn’t get another chance ever again, but then she moves off of the other woman, sliding down onto the mattress beside her.

They’re silent for a while and then Rachel turns her head, nuzzles her face into Quinn’s shoulder. “Is it how you thought it would be?” she asks.

Quinn smiles with her chin in Rachel’s hair. “No,” she says. “It was so much better.”

Rachel leans back and she frowns. Quinn thinks it’s something she’s said until, “I’m sorry that…I mean, I kind of forced myself on you. I don’t usually—“

She cuts herself off and shakes her head.

Quinn cuts the tension with the knife of, “I know. You made that pretty clear when you told me it had been two years since you had slept with someone.”

Rachel laughs, running a hand through her hair. “What are we doing?” she whispers, sounding panicked.

Quinn shrugs because she doesn’t really know, but also because she doesn’t want to pressure Rachel with too much at once.

She doesn’t want to crush her with the weight of expectation.

“Round two, maybe,” she says, her voice light. “If I’m lucky.”

She’s sort of too tired for that, actually, but then Rachel’s trailing her hand down her side to her hip and she was wrong; she’s never been this awake.

There’s still a bit of apprehension in Rachel’s expression, but she hides it well with a genuine smile. “Oh, Quinn,” she says, kissing Quinn’s jaw and moving her hand lower. “I think you’re very lucky.”

.

They’re woken up the next morning by a loud knock followed by, “Hey, Ear Splitters, get up. We wanna go get breakfast.”

Quinn shoots up and covers her body with the sheet just as Rachel stirs beside her.

“Mmm,” Rachel hums, opening her eyes slowly. She smiles when she sees Quinn. “G’morning.”

“Seriously, guys! It’s the least you can do after all of your traumatizing ruckus.”

Quinn blushes and looks over at Rachel, expecting a similar reaction from her, but is met, instead, with an annoyed expression.

“Go without us,” she says, loudly enough that she can be heard. “We didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Quinn can just hear Kurt’s mortified gasp and then the sound of his footsteps retreating.

She looks over at Rachel with an eyebrow raised. “That was just cruel,” she says, but she’s smiling a little.

Rachel shrugs and scoots closer to her. “I don’t want to get up.”

Maybe it’s risky, but Quinn says, “Why ever not?”

Rachel reaches out and tugs Quinn’s wrist over, running her fingers across Quinn’s palm. “Maybe there’s something else I’d rather do,” she says and then she kisses the other woman firmly.

They’ll have time to talk about this later, Quinn thinks as she kisses Rachel back fervently.

About what it means, how they feel.

All of that.

Quinn smiles into the kiss as Rachel rolls over and suspends herself over her. She flattens her hands against the backs of Rachel’s thighs and pulling her closer.

They have plenty of time.

…

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> title from Andrew Belle's song "The Enemy."


End file.
